How imperative is it that one uses the carbon brake shoe pads for Zipp 404s? If you do use them, do you just leave the brake pads on when you use your training wheelset?
As I understand it, the problem is that normal pads heat up too much on carbon, because the carbon doesn’t help to dissipate the heat. So the special pads will work fine on Aluminum. Regular pads will work on carbon, they just wear out faster than you could imagine.
it won’t hurt your zipps at all to use regular pads, but you’ll eat through the pads literally in a ride or two and the stopping power isn’t as good when wet (in my opinion). You will eat stock shimano pads left and right…
Agreed.
However, I raced on Zipps for years( both triathlons and TT’s) and did not notice any extraordinary wear of the brake regular pads. Parhaps this is because, I recall talking to a top ranked time trialer a long time ago and he told me that if you are using your brakes in a time-trial( which a triathlon bike leg is kinda, sort-of is) then you are wasting speed that you have developed. I know that you do need to use the brakes from time to time, but I can recall doing whole IM bike courses in the past and wondering why I even had brakes on the bike - because I rarely used them!
Now if you are road racing on the Zipps or using them regularly for group rides, then indeed, brake pad wear can be an issue
Just my thoughts.
I agree with fleck… no need at all for special pads. I have been using shimano pads for three seaosns and there are still Plenty of pad left on them. ZIPP sells special pads that turn into dust, but these are unnecessary if you ask me.
Long or short, hilly of not…there is no need ot be riding your brakes during a race…
You got it. Brakes have one purpose, to allow you to come into T-2 hot and then stop quickly. The rest of the day, they’re just decoration.
“If you brake, you don’t win.” —Mario Cipollini
Have said that I much prefer technical courses where you have to brake now and then, tather than a drag strip bike course.